Step aside Sir Fred Goodwin, some Rangers fans want to see Sir David Murray stripped of title

They were vehement about how he should suffer for leaving the place in such a
mess. The man in question – who once felt the tap of Her Majesty’s sword on
his shoulder – deserved be-knighting or Sircumcision or whatever the latest
coinage is for the withdrawal of honour.

Dark knight? Sir David Murray brought in the likes of Gazza at a huge costPhoto: PA

Were these two gentlemen, loud in their pub denunciation, referring to Fred, the now thoroughly Shredded?

Not at all. They being two veteran Rangers supporters, the object of their ire was Sir David Murray, once lord of their particular manor and now evidently regarded as tumbrel fodder.

Mind you, when the conversation moved on to its “What did David Murray ever do for us?” phase, there was a nostalgic pang for the days of Gazza, Brian Laudrup and Mark Hateley and the observation: “We’ll never see their likes again.”

And there, for Rangers fans, is the rub. Whatever one might conjecture about the evasions and contradictions that have characterised Craig Whyte’s public utterances since he took control of the club last year, he was indisputably correct in one respect when he employed Rangers’ official website on Tuesday to respond to confirmation that he had mortgaged four years’ worth of season ticket sales to maintain the club’s cash flow.

“Rangers has operating costs of approximately £45 million a year and revenues of around £35 million – not including revenue from possible Champions’ League and Europa League participation,” wrote Whyte. “There is a big financial hole to fill every year – regardless of who owns the club.”

As was pointed out in this column last year, if Murray had maintained control of Rangers for only nine days more, his bombastic pledge to spend £10 for every £5 spent by Celtic would have resulted in the acquisition of exactly twice as many trophies as the other half of the Old Firm over his time in charge.

The obstacle that the two Rangers fans in the pub stumbled against was that the good times rolled only because of the deficit funding supplied by Murray – some of whose other companies were charging the club for services.

The peak of this indulgence – or madness, according to taste – was reached, of course, during the 42 months of the Dick Advocaat era when the Dutch manager raised £36.05 million from selling players but was allowed to spend

Rangers went from £21 million in the black to a £21.7 million overdraft in 2001. Said Murray: “We can’t go on spending money like that.”

And so the vicious circle is unbroken. Pain deferred has turned out to be pain concentrated, as the two pub critics lamented. Yet it could be perhaps be endured if Whyte’s methods and motives were in any way transparent.

He was, after all, the only show in town when he gained control last May. Best case scenario and allowing for the chance that HMRC will not win its case is an austerity regime, augmented by some advance money against season ticket sales, that would see Rangers in better shape in a couple of years.

Such medicine would hardly be palatable, but so much of it is being thrust down so many throats in the wider world that it would be unexceptionable. However, the mortgaging of tickets so far into the future is a huge gamble.

The purchase of a season ticket is an act of faith that the money will be invested in renewed ambition. Whyte has hawked four years’ worth of such dreams along with the team’s top scorer at a time when the SPL championship still hangs in the balance – if only just so.

Some Rangers supporters now take the view that they should not renew season tickets until he parades signings that would make it worth their while. And if revenue from season tickets is withheld, how does Whyte pay off the debt he has incurred using them as security, never mind recruit fresh talent?

Nobody can get the figures to square apart – perhaps – from Whyte himself and he is in no hurry to present them for scrutiny, even by his own fellow shareholders. In the Murray/Advocaat era it was the chasm between earnings and spending that created Rangers’ current troubles.

In Whyte’s case the difference between the facts he is prepared to share and those that are dragged into the public domain against his will is becoming a chasm of credibility. In more prosperous times the Ibrox support might have yearned for the club to be hauled back from the brink by a white knight.

These days, who’d thank you for one of those?

Who is the other Vincent Lunny?

Vincent Lunny, the SFA’s first full time compliance officer, met a group of correspondents at Hampden Park on Tuesday. But was it, as advertised, his first engagement with the media?

The previous evening an online magazine carried a report from a game between Hamilton Accies women’s team and their Celtic counterparts. The report was credited to guest writer Vincent Lunny.

“Definitely not me,” the SFA’s Lunny told The Daily Telegraph. “I’ve only ever met one other Vincent Lunny and he was involved in ice hockey in the States.”

So would the other Vincent Lunny please make himself known?

For the record, Accies’ ladies won 4-0 – and no incidents were drawn to the attention of the compliance officer.